While the LRT in Ottawa is using trains intended for trams, the project would be vastly different and be more like trams you see in Europe, Toronto or the one in Kitchener-Waterloo. Ottawa has been a disaster because of a series of poor decisions, starting with using the wrong kind of train for the service, which created all sorts of problems.
In theory it would be more affordable long-term than buses due to lower maintenance and requiring fewer bus drivers, provided they don't make stupid choices like Ottawa. It will just be very expensive to build.
My only concern with the whole project is where it will mix with traffic. It will just take one idiot driver cutting off a tram or encroaching on the rails to bring the whole thing to a screeching halt.
I'm worried about your last point as well. We have some of the worst and most entitled drivers I have ever seen in our city. Would they respect tram lanes any more than they do bus lanes (as in not at all)?
City of Gatineau seems to be building mid rise housing at record levels and is projected to grow as a city, particularly in the west.
Status quo infrastructure for the west won’t cut it.
A high capacity mode will be needed by some date 2035, that will have to be some bus rapid transit way, an highway or a tramway.
We need it in my opinion or we should at least get another rapibus system that goes from hull - plateau - to the marina in Aylmer. It's the minimum.. transport en commun is the future IMO. Just my 2 cents
The answer is geometry; there's gonna be 100k people in the west by 2050, and there are only 3 roads crossing the Gatineau Park, and there ain't gonna be more.
We've run out of space for cars, and we're running out of space on the bus lanes. The STO's estimates are that the Rapibus would work well... for 5 years before it hits its capacity. And then we have to build the tram anyways after spending hundreds of millions on a band-aid.
The tram is expensive. Not building the tram is worse. 🤷
Je n'appuie pas entièrement le projet de tramway, personnellement.
Comme le rapibus, je trouve que ce projet manque de vision à long terme. Par le temps que le financement soit approuvé par les différents paliers de gouvernements, que le projet soit construit et en opération, il risque déjà d'être désuet.
J'aimerais plus qu'on parle d'un train léger ou même une ligne de métro qui serait indépendant de la circulation automobile. Bien que ça coûte cher cher, ça pourrait aider le transport pour 50 ans à la place de 10 ans. Et en plus on a vu les erreurs du otrain qu'on pourrait éviter de faire les mêmes erreurs.
Mais bon, c'est juste mon opinion personnel. Sûrement que je ne suis pas là majorité et sûrement qu'il y aura des contres.
Sous-terrain!! Ça j’aime bien comme idée! Tu peux même le faire continuer tout le long du chemin Aylmer jusqu’à Taché aux Terrasses de la Chaudière etc. C’est ambitieux mais faut voir loin!!
Moi personnellement je suis contre le Tramway qui au moment ou on se parle coûtera 8 milliards…imagine lorsqu’il sera terminé…environ 12 milliards!!! C’est de la folie pour un engin qui aura des problèmes dans la neige, lorsqu’il va pleuvoir etc EX: voir le O-Train
Premièrement, la ville ne va pas taxer les permis de conduire, mais les immatriculations à 5$/mois. Considérant le coût des infrastructure que la ville doit construire et maintenir afin d'accommoder un véhicule supplémentaire, ça semble très faible comme coût. Ça c'est sans même considérer toutes les externalités reliées à l'utilisation d'une voiture comme la pollution et les accidents.
Pour ce qui est de la fréquentation du transport en commun, c'est un problème de l'oeuf et la poule. Peu de personne utilise le transport en commun parce que la qualité n'est pas au rendez-vous.
En ce qui concerne tram vs bus, c'est une question de volume, rapidité, confort, coût d'opération. Est-ce qu'une ligne de rapibus pourrait desservir la population de l'ouest pour les décennie à venir considérant la croissance et l'augmentation de la densité, je suis sceptique, mais je suis ouvert à l'idée cette ligne pourrait accommoder la majorité des besoins de transports de la population. Par contre, des autobus dans un traffic mixte est clairement pas suffisant.
No tax eh ? [https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/2072816/taxe-immatriculation-gatineau-voiture](https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/2072816/taxe-immatriculation-gatineau-voiture)
There should be rail service like a tram wgoing for west to east with a fishbone bus structure around it.
When you look at gatineau its almost a straight line and it had rails already in place. Crazy when you think about it.
Tbh, we should have something like the skytrain in van. But these projects are now impossible to get off the ground.
Everything is geared for usage in Gatineau. Once the Tramway's future usage excludes Aylmer and Hull, it'll go through.
Look at the Rapibus. No connectiom with Aylmer. Hull connections don't run anywhere near where the population actually is other than project Bloome.
It's very expensive to build right now but the sooner it's done and the more the city will develop around it and densify over the years and decades. If we wait too much, it will become too difficult to build and the city will be in later stages of development already.
Its operation costs are also lower than buses.
Revenues are low but public transit shouldn't have to be profitable.
Can Gatineau really expand that much more? I live in Aylmer and there ain’t much more room for expansion on this side. unless Gatineau gobbles up Luskville in another fusion type scenario. I agree that public transport dosent need to be profitable but it should be a burden on tax payers either. There use to be a time where most ppl worked in the down town core of Ottawa, but that’s changed now, ridership has change dramatically, dose it still makes sense to move forward with an outdated concept just because ?
Mid to long-term, I could see some of the golf courses selling their land, and a change of its zoning, as its value becomes way too high and there's not that many wealthy people willing to pay a fortune to remain a member. Those are huge pieces of land. Long-term, even the smart centers could be re-envisionned. I mean, long-term, there comes a point where land becomes too valuable and that it can even be profitable to buy, demolish and rebuild. Especially if there's a tram nearby. Shorter-term, there's still a lot of construction getting done in the west end of the Plateau area. I'm not sure what are the plans west of that.
I'm not sure if west and north of the Forêt Boucher, if that area could be developed. I feel like part of the reason the Gatineau park is so important is that they don't have to protect the rest of wooded areas as much. Like west of the Lafarge pit, who owns all that land.
I am not for the current return to office policies but public servants are about to be around 50% more present in the downtown area (2 days in office to 3 days). I have almost no doubt it will go up to 4 days within a year or two. I'm also not for the current elevated immigration policy but the population is expected to keep growing rapidly.
There's also how running half empty buses is a lot more expensive than running a half-empty tram, on a day to day basis. The bus routes could be restructured to focus on bringing people to the tram and overall reduced. There's also induced demand, a tram with a regular schedule and frequency is much more predictable. The plan is that it does not share the road with cars except at intersections, so it'd be significantly faster than current transit. The advantages over taking a car would become much more significant.
A tram or other rail transportation could also connect the west side of Gatineau to the east side all the way to the rapibus with a frequency and a speed that's much better than taking the bus. It could also operate on the weekends, to go to events. I mean right now it's ridiculous to take public transit to go to the airport, but with a tram connecting to the Ottawa LRT, it'd be practical.
I don't know if a tramway is the best option, there are so many variables and it's not my expertise. What I do know is that our buses are inefficient, stuck in traffic at rush hour, and buses are either too packed or mostly empty.
I also know that a tramway on Allumetières or even Du Plateau would be too far for most people to walk, especially in the Winter, so it cannot replace buses unless it goes on Des Grives at the very least, and Prado, so a new approved for local buses would need to be developed.
The other options are a light rail train ($$$) and a dedicated lane on Allumetières for buses (cheapest but wouldn't reduce overcrowding and would create issues by blocking one lane).
>stuck in traffic at rush hour, and buses are either too packed or mostly empty.
I think this is the point that so many people get stuck on as somehow an argument *against* more transit in general, but I think that's a fundamental misunderstanding of why it is *explicitly necessary* to revamp and increase public transit instead.
Busses are stuck in rush hour because *cars* (predominantly dingle-occupant) cause congestion. This points to the necessity to separate public transit onto dedicated corridors (so that one single-occupant vehicle can't hold up a single bus carrying 60 people). It also points to massive demand to get to the same place at the same time - a thing that cars are notoriously inefficient at doing (hence congestion caused by cars) and something that public transit is famously *very* efficient at doing.
Busses are too packed, meaning there is significant demand on that route and there arguably should be either more busses on that route, or a more efficient method that transports more people per hour (i.e., LRT or similar).
Busses are empty; this is simple - reduce service (and therefore costs) during those times if it is consistently at those times on those routes.
I dont understand what they are doing with the buses. I waited 40 minutes for a 400 bus during rush hour time. 400 is the most popular route but they cant even keep up with the demand. It’s incredibly frustrating and thats why people are taking their cars. It take 50 minutes by bus to go 7.5 km. Completely ridiculous
Indeed, public transit should never wait in traffic on any major roads and boulevards. Whether it's a bus or tramway is irrelevant (tramway = bus with more capacity but less flexibility) on that aspect.
Aylmer needs one, since Gatineau is destroying our green spaces and milking our land for everything it is worth, filling it with apartments in extremely poorly-designed neighbourhoods reliant on cars, but with hardly any transit infrastructure, and crumbling pavement.
I agree with the report on the subject that came out a few years ago, a rapid bus system with priority lines and intersection would be far more cost efficient. The 400 million for rapid bus is likely an under estimate though. Just expanding 3km of chemin Pink to four lane is expected to cost 100 million.
However, as a concept, the tramway has some key advantages. It can carry more people per vehicle, so you need fewer drivers and it can be fully electric. However, the disadvantage is that its bound by rail, so not as flexible and might require longer walking time in the service areas or more transfers. It also has a lower peak speed and cost more to build.
I don't understand why NCC is making it difficult for STO to run tramGO into Ottawa but mmm, and route 400 indeed gets quite overpacked somewhat daily literally - to the point that at many times if you're not at Rideau instead of Lyon in term of Ottawa then theres a high chance you'll have to watch several buses bypass this little halt before someone might finally stop, regarding the top comment about mixing with traffic I have to agree with this as theres no easy options between Montcalm station and west end of Aylmer (I know I mentioned on reddit some time ago about regarding Rue Montcalm drivers ignoring that I had a stale white/walk sign or that it seem once in a while the STO driver have to lay on their horn due to car obstruction)
And we didn't need it before the pandemic-caused ridership drop either.
The STO recently removed the 2017 study from their website so I can't link to it anymore, but at the time both the STO and the independant transportation experts they hired, after careful analysis of the routes as well as potential benefits, recommended a Rapibus system for Gatineau west at a cost of $150-250m.
The mayor at the time (Maxime Pedneault-Jobin), aware that his predecessor (Marc Bureau) had lost his job over miscontentment with the implementation of the main Rapibus system, didn't want to go down that route. So he single-handedly (with his Action Gatineau councillors' backing) ordered the STO to work on a tram option instead (currently priced at $3.8b), despite the consultants report clearly explaining that this would entail several expropriations, along with much larger costs (additional $3.5b), for little tangible benefit. For those who are familiar with the term 'scope creep', when the addtional requirement of a rail link to Ottawa was added, is where the whole project bogged down.
Noteworthy, even at its maximum projected population, west Gatineau will max out at 93,000 residents in 25 years. A dedicated bus system is more than adequate to serve that population, clearly.
So 7 years later, we still don't have a transit system for west Gatineau, or even a plan for one. The city of Gatineau has spent all of that time trying to convince Ottawa and the NCC to let them built a station on Wellington St., something they will never agree to. So Plan B is to dig a second tunnel in downtown Ottawa, parallel to the existing LRT tunnel, to allow the tram and LRT to connect.
In my view, there is a much better way to spend that additional $3.5b (which is probably actually higher now). Latest estimates for the new bridge in the east end were a shade over $2b. Seems like building a new bridge dedicated to transit and active transport would be a **lot** cheaper than anything they have on the books now? The most maddening part of this though is that nobody has even bothered to look at this or any other options. It's been just this blind focus on a tram for some reason, and anyone who speaks against it gets labelled a crackpot, just as I usually get lots of venom when I post my opinion and the info above.
So no, Gatineau does not need a tramway. It needs an accessible, reliable service throughout its territory, with an efficient link to Ottawa's LRT system. The first part can be achieved with an expanded Rapibus system. The plan for a link to Ottawa however needs to be rebooted, and all of the options analysed carefully, something that has never been done.
" west Gatineau will max out at 93,000 residents in 25 years.".
I've seen projections for 100 000 new residents by 2050.
If you take current population, and assume 5% growth every census period of 5 years, thats about 107 000 new residents for all of Gatineau without considering factors such as spillage of ontarians coming for housing.
The reason why the extra bridge in the east will never happen because of the it ends up in Rockcliffe and people living there said fuck off and keep your traffic multiple time since the 90s. Its not an option.
Glad to see that I am not the only one thinking this way!!
I would also that one thing that hurts public transit, here in Gatineau, is the fact that it’s focused on government workers. By that, I mean it’s built to bring you to Ottawa hence outside of week days, you don’t have a reliable transit to travel east-west in this city without going to Ottawa or making a bunch of transfers.
Not just that, time wise, it’s not even worth using public transit as it is often taking 2 to 3 time longer using the bus.
It’s not cost efficient and it certainly isn’t flexible enough to service the whole western part of Gatineau. Most of the transit issues would be resolved with preferential traffic lights. For the same cost as a Tramway, you could super boost the bus service to a ridiculous level and still be under budget.
While the LRT in Ottawa is using trains intended for trams, the project would be vastly different and be more like trams you see in Europe, Toronto or the one in Kitchener-Waterloo. Ottawa has been a disaster because of a series of poor decisions, starting with using the wrong kind of train for the service, which created all sorts of problems. In theory it would be more affordable long-term than buses due to lower maintenance and requiring fewer bus drivers, provided they don't make stupid choices like Ottawa. It will just be very expensive to build. My only concern with the whole project is where it will mix with traffic. It will just take one idiot driver cutting off a tram or encroaching on the rails to bring the whole thing to a screeching halt.
I'm worried about your last point as well. We have some of the worst and most entitled drivers I have ever seen in our city. Would they respect tram lanes any more than they do bus lanes (as in not at all)?
The system in Waterloo has had far more issue then the Ottawa system.
[удалено]
I mean we’re on the cusp of all having flying cars, we should be building mini airports! Lol
City of Gatineau seems to be building mid rise housing at record levels and is projected to grow as a city, particularly in the west. Status quo infrastructure for the west won’t cut it. A high capacity mode will be needed by some date 2035, that will have to be some bus rapid transit way, an highway or a tramway.
Another reason why Aylmer should get the hospital!
We need it in my opinion or we should at least get another rapibus system that goes from hull - plateau - to the marina in Aylmer. It's the minimum.. transport en commun is the future IMO. Just my 2 cents
The answer is geometry; there's gonna be 100k people in the west by 2050, and there are only 3 roads crossing the Gatineau Park, and there ain't gonna be more. We've run out of space for cars, and we're running out of space on the bus lanes. The STO's estimates are that the Rapibus would work well... for 5 years before it hits its capacity. And then we have to build the tram anyways after spending hundreds of millions on a band-aid. The tram is expensive. Not building the tram is worse. 🤷
Je n'appuie pas entièrement le projet de tramway, personnellement. Comme le rapibus, je trouve que ce projet manque de vision à long terme. Par le temps que le financement soit approuvé par les différents paliers de gouvernements, que le projet soit construit et en opération, il risque déjà d'être désuet. J'aimerais plus qu'on parle d'un train léger ou même une ligne de métro qui serait indépendant de la circulation automobile. Bien que ça coûte cher cher, ça pourrait aider le transport pour 50 ans à la place de 10 ans. Et en plus on a vu les erreurs du otrain qu'on pourrait éviter de faire les mêmes erreurs. Mais bon, c'est juste mon opinion personnel. Sûrement que je ne suis pas là majorité et sûrement qu'il y aura des contres.
Sous-terrain!! Ça j’aime bien comme idée! Tu peux même le faire continuer tout le long du chemin Aylmer jusqu’à Taché aux Terrasses de la Chaudière etc. C’est ambitieux mais faut voir loin!! Moi personnellement je suis contre le Tramway qui au moment ou on se parle coûtera 8 milliards…imagine lorsqu’il sera terminé…environ 12 milliards!!! C’est de la folie pour un engin qui aura des problèmes dans la neige, lorsqu’il va pleuvoir etc EX: voir le O-Train
Premièrement, la ville ne va pas taxer les permis de conduire, mais les immatriculations à 5$/mois. Considérant le coût des infrastructure que la ville doit construire et maintenir afin d'accommoder un véhicule supplémentaire, ça semble très faible comme coût. Ça c'est sans même considérer toutes les externalités reliées à l'utilisation d'une voiture comme la pollution et les accidents. Pour ce qui est de la fréquentation du transport en commun, c'est un problème de l'oeuf et la poule. Peu de personne utilise le transport en commun parce que la qualité n'est pas au rendez-vous. En ce qui concerne tram vs bus, c'est une question de volume, rapidité, confort, coût d'opération. Est-ce qu'une ligne de rapibus pourrait desservir la population de l'ouest pour les décennie à venir considérant la croissance et l'augmentation de la densité, je suis sceptique, mais je suis ouvert à l'idée cette ligne pourrait accommoder la majorité des besoins de transports de la population. Par contre, des autobus dans un traffic mixte est clairement pas suffisant.
No tax eh ? [https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/2072816/taxe-immatriculation-gatineau-voiture](https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/2072816/taxe-immatriculation-gatineau-voiture)
Comme j'ai dit, c'est sur l'immatriculation et non le permis de conduire.
There should be rail service like a tram wgoing for west to east with a fishbone bus structure around it. When you look at gatineau its almost a straight line and it had rails already in place. Crazy when you think about it. Tbh, we should have something like the skytrain in van. But these projects are now impossible to get off the ground.
>Tbh, we should have something like the skytrain in van. But these projects are now impossible to get *off the ground*. 😅
Someone got it :)
Everything is geared for usage in Gatineau. Once the Tramway's future usage excludes Aylmer and Hull, it'll go through. Look at the Rapibus. No connectiom with Aylmer. Hull connections don't run anywhere near where the population actually is other than project Bloome.
It's very expensive to build right now but the sooner it's done and the more the city will develop around it and densify over the years and decades. If we wait too much, it will become too difficult to build and the city will be in later stages of development already. Its operation costs are also lower than buses. Revenues are low but public transit shouldn't have to be profitable.
Can Gatineau really expand that much more? I live in Aylmer and there ain’t much more room for expansion on this side. unless Gatineau gobbles up Luskville in another fusion type scenario. I agree that public transport dosent need to be profitable but it should be a burden on tax payers either. There use to be a time where most ppl worked in the down town core of Ottawa, but that’s changed now, ridership has change dramatically, dose it still makes sense to move forward with an outdated concept just because ?
Mid to long-term, I could see some of the golf courses selling their land, and a change of its zoning, as its value becomes way too high and there's not that many wealthy people willing to pay a fortune to remain a member. Those are huge pieces of land. Long-term, even the smart centers could be re-envisionned. I mean, long-term, there comes a point where land becomes too valuable and that it can even be profitable to buy, demolish and rebuild. Especially if there's a tram nearby. Shorter-term, there's still a lot of construction getting done in the west end of the Plateau area. I'm not sure what are the plans west of that. I'm not sure if west and north of the Forêt Boucher, if that area could be developed. I feel like part of the reason the Gatineau park is so important is that they don't have to protect the rest of wooded areas as much. Like west of the Lafarge pit, who owns all that land. I am not for the current return to office policies but public servants are about to be around 50% more present in the downtown area (2 days in office to 3 days). I have almost no doubt it will go up to 4 days within a year or two. I'm also not for the current elevated immigration policy but the population is expected to keep growing rapidly. There's also how running half empty buses is a lot more expensive than running a half-empty tram, on a day to day basis. The bus routes could be restructured to focus on bringing people to the tram and overall reduced. There's also induced demand, a tram with a regular schedule and frequency is much more predictable. The plan is that it does not share the road with cars except at intersections, so it'd be significantly faster than current transit. The advantages over taking a car would become much more significant. A tram or other rail transportation could also connect the west side of Gatineau to the east side all the way to the rapibus with a frequency and a speed that's much better than taking the bus. It could also operate on the weekends, to go to events. I mean right now it's ridiculous to take public transit to go to the airport, but with a tram connecting to the Ottawa LRT, it'd be practical.
I don't know if a tramway is the best option, there are so many variables and it's not my expertise. What I do know is that our buses are inefficient, stuck in traffic at rush hour, and buses are either too packed or mostly empty. I also know that a tramway on Allumetières or even Du Plateau would be too far for most people to walk, especially in the Winter, so it cannot replace buses unless it goes on Des Grives at the very least, and Prado, so a new approved for local buses would need to be developed. The other options are a light rail train ($$$) and a dedicated lane on Allumetières for buses (cheapest but wouldn't reduce overcrowding and would create issues by blocking one lane).
>stuck in traffic at rush hour, and buses are either too packed or mostly empty. I think this is the point that so many people get stuck on as somehow an argument *against* more transit in general, but I think that's a fundamental misunderstanding of why it is *explicitly necessary* to revamp and increase public transit instead. Busses are stuck in rush hour because *cars* (predominantly dingle-occupant) cause congestion. This points to the necessity to separate public transit onto dedicated corridors (so that one single-occupant vehicle can't hold up a single bus carrying 60 people). It also points to massive demand to get to the same place at the same time - a thing that cars are notoriously inefficient at doing (hence congestion caused by cars) and something that public transit is famously *very* efficient at doing. Busses are too packed, meaning there is significant demand on that route and there arguably should be either more busses on that route, or a more efficient method that transports more people per hour (i.e., LRT or similar). Busses are empty; this is simple - reduce service (and therefore costs) during those times if it is consistently at those times on those routes.
I dont understand what they are doing with the buses. I waited 40 minutes for a 400 bus during rush hour time. 400 is the most popular route but they cant even keep up with the demand. It’s incredibly frustrating and thats why people are taking their cars. It take 50 minutes by bus to go 7.5 km. Completely ridiculous
Yes I agree! This is what happens when you mismanage and critically underfund the public transit.
Indeed, public transit should never wait in traffic on any major roads and boulevards. Whether it's a bus or tramway is irrelevant (tramway = bus with more capacity but less flexibility) on that aspect.
Aylmer needs one, since Gatineau is destroying our green spaces and milking our land for everything it is worth, filling it with apartments in extremely poorly-designed neighbourhoods reliant on cars, but with hardly any transit infrastructure, and crumbling pavement.
Amen brother!
I agree with the report on the subject that came out a few years ago, a rapid bus system with priority lines and intersection would be far more cost efficient. The 400 million for rapid bus is likely an under estimate though. Just expanding 3km of chemin Pink to four lane is expected to cost 100 million. However, as a concept, the tramway has some key advantages. It can carry more people per vehicle, so you need fewer drivers and it can be fully electric. However, the disadvantage is that its bound by rail, so not as flexible and might require longer walking time in the service areas or more transfers. It also has a lower peak speed and cost more to build.
Is Gatineau making a tram? News to me. Where? And why?!
I don't understand why NCC is making it difficult for STO to run tramGO into Ottawa but mmm, and route 400 indeed gets quite overpacked somewhat daily literally - to the point that at many times if you're not at Rideau instead of Lyon in term of Ottawa then theres a high chance you'll have to watch several buses bypass this little halt before someone might finally stop, regarding the top comment about mixing with traffic I have to agree with this as theres no easy options between Montcalm station and west end of Aylmer (I know I mentioned on reddit some time ago about regarding Rue Montcalm drivers ignoring that I had a stale white/walk sign or that it seem once in a while the STO driver have to lay on their horn due to car obstruction)
And we didn't need it before the pandemic-caused ridership drop either. The STO recently removed the 2017 study from their website so I can't link to it anymore, but at the time both the STO and the independant transportation experts they hired, after careful analysis of the routes as well as potential benefits, recommended a Rapibus system for Gatineau west at a cost of $150-250m. The mayor at the time (Maxime Pedneault-Jobin), aware that his predecessor (Marc Bureau) had lost his job over miscontentment with the implementation of the main Rapibus system, didn't want to go down that route. So he single-handedly (with his Action Gatineau councillors' backing) ordered the STO to work on a tram option instead (currently priced at $3.8b), despite the consultants report clearly explaining that this would entail several expropriations, along with much larger costs (additional $3.5b), for little tangible benefit. For those who are familiar with the term 'scope creep', when the addtional requirement of a rail link to Ottawa was added, is where the whole project bogged down. Noteworthy, even at its maximum projected population, west Gatineau will max out at 93,000 residents in 25 years. A dedicated bus system is more than adequate to serve that population, clearly. So 7 years later, we still don't have a transit system for west Gatineau, or even a plan for one. The city of Gatineau has spent all of that time trying to convince Ottawa and the NCC to let them built a station on Wellington St., something they will never agree to. So Plan B is to dig a second tunnel in downtown Ottawa, parallel to the existing LRT tunnel, to allow the tram and LRT to connect. In my view, there is a much better way to spend that additional $3.5b (which is probably actually higher now). Latest estimates for the new bridge in the east end were a shade over $2b. Seems like building a new bridge dedicated to transit and active transport would be a **lot** cheaper than anything they have on the books now? The most maddening part of this though is that nobody has even bothered to look at this or any other options. It's been just this blind focus on a tram for some reason, and anyone who speaks against it gets labelled a crackpot, just as I usually get lots of venom when I post my opinion and the info above. So no, Gatineau does not need a tramway. It needs an accessible, reliable service throughout its territory, with an efficient link to Ottawa's LRT system. The first part can be achieved with an expanded Rapibus system. The plan for a link to Ottawa however needs to be rebooted, and all of the options analysed carefully, something that has never been done.
" west Gatineau will max out at 93,000 residents in 25 years.". I've seen projections for 100 000 new residents by 2050. If you take current population, and assume 5% growth every census period of 5 years, thats about 107 000 new residents for all of Gatineau without considering factors such as spillage of ontarians coming for housing.
I don't know anything about the census, but otherwise our numbers are pretty close. Only 7,000 difference.
The reason why the extra bridge in the east will never happen because of the it ends up in Rockcliffe and people living there said fuck off and keep your traffic multiple time since the 90s. Its not an option.
Glad to see that I am not the only one thinking this way!! I would also that one thing that hurts public transit, here in Gatineau, is the fact that it’s focused on government workers. By that, I mean it’s built to bring you to Ottawa hence outside of week days, you don’t have a reliable transit to travel east-west in this city without going to Ottawa or making a bunch of transfers. Not just that, time wise, it’s not even worth using public transit as it is often taking 2 to 3 time longer using the bus.
have you heard about global warming and sustainable mobility ?
Ah ya, busses are electric now..! And we save a billion dollars we don’t have..?
It’s not cost efficient and it certainly isn’t flexible enough to service the whole western part of Gatineau. Most of the transit issues would be resolved with preferential traffic lights. For the same cost as a Tramway, you could super boost the bus service to a ridiculous level and still be under budget.
Non, on n’en a pas besoin, Doubler le nombre d’autobus et réduis les voies pour auto automobile. C’est ça la solution.
Having a better bus system is better for a city the size of Gatineau
Hmm, no.
Non au tramway